Wednesday, 10 December 2014

Music Machine 32 - Damage Limitation

This piece of music for improvising ensemble is inspired by the number 565 gigatonnes. This is the amount of carbon dioxide scientists say we can release into the atmosphere to stand a reasonable chance of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

Musicians are permitted to play no more than 565 notes, collectively. They have strictly 7 minutes to create and perform the piece: 2 minutes to agree on a plan and then 5 minutes to carry it out as a musical performance. It is also important to know that the amount of carbon already contained in the proven coal, oil and gas reserves of fossil-fuel companies is 2,795 gigatonnes, and the value of this carbon is already liquid in the global economy - ie, it has effectively already been burned. Damage Limitation was first performed by the Get Rich Quick and Scratch Festival Orchestra at Exeter Phoenix on 19th March 2014 as part of the Vibraphonic Festival.

I played my casio digital horn through a midi module and wrote a short prgoramme in python that played a given number of notes within the preset parameters of the score. The other instruments involved included double basses, percussion, tuning fork, voice, accordion, violin and synthesizer.